The Collapsing Empire is available March 21, but in the meantime, you can transport yourself into Scalzi’s interstellar epic with excerpts on Tor.com. We’ll be posting chapters all week; you can get started right away with the prologue and Chapter One, and check back all this week for additional excerpts, collected below. Happy Reading!

Yesterday I received an email from an intrepid SF reader who boldly dared to go where few would bother. His conclusions:

I read the excerpt and postscript of it just yesterday. It is really bad - there's an entire chapter where strategy or politics is discussed by some lady who has been walked in on while fucking Wesley Crusher, and she just keeps going at it while continuing the conversation. Deeply pathetic.

Wait... it turns out I made a mistake. The Amazon Look Inside copy has missing pages during the Wesley Crusher episode, which is why I thought it consumed most of the chapter. After reading the Amazon sample, I looked at the Wesley Crusher chapter that Tor posted, and she only has her conversation while having sex for about two pages or so. It is nevertheless patently ridiculous, although much much funnier in the Look Inside version where she has her third party conversation for about 15 pages while getting plowed by a boy toy.

Sadly, the misunderstood version is a better yarn. The ironic thing about it is that end of the book gives away that the Flow or whatever it is called has been based on some convoluted lie the entire time. And now they finish by having to establish a new lie to keep the galaxy going, or something.

It is surprisingly devoid of snark. Or anything resembling emotion. It reads like a damned board meeting or something. It's like he plagiarized SFWA treasury meetings for inspiration.

Oh. My. I'm not surprised in the least. But I am amused. You know that later today, there will be an executive at Macmillan flipping through the book and saying, "wait, Patrick paid HOW much for this shit?" But then, I thought, surely the reviewer exaggerates!

No, as it turns out, no, he isn't.

Chapter Two

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced. “You’re needed,” he said.“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Kiva said. She’d just finally gotten herself into a groove, so fuck Waylov (not literally, he was awful) if she was going to get out of the groove just because he walked into it. Grooves were hard to come by. People have sex, and he was unannounced. If this was what he walked into, it was his fault, not hers. The assistant purser seemed a little concerned, but Kiva applied a little pressure to make it clear festivities were to continue.“It’s important.”“Trust me, so is this.”“We’ve got a customs official who won’t let us take any haverfruit off the ship,” Brennir said. If he was shocked or scandalized by Lagos’s activities he was doing a good job of hiding it. He mostly looked bored. “Offloading our haverfruit is why we came to End. If we don’t sell it, or develop licenses, we’re screwed. You’re the owner’s representative. You’re going to have to explain to your mother why this trip was the cause of the financial ruin of your family. So perhaps you might like to join Captain Blinnikka in talking with this customs official right now to see if you can resolve this problem. Or you can just go on fucking that junior crew member, ma’am. I’m sure those are equivalent activities as regards your future, and the future of this ship, and your family.”“Well, shit,” Kiva said. Her groove was definitely gone, and the assistant purser, her little project, looked pretty miserable at the moment. “That was a pretty impressive jab you just gave to someone who can fire your ass, Brennir.”“You can’t fire me, ma’am,” Brennir said. “I’ve got tenure with the guild. Now, are you coming or not?”“I’m thinking.”

Well, it is sort of reminiscent of Asimovian naming conventions, I suppose. Awful as it is, I don't think it quite manages to top this legendary exchange from the Hugo Award-winning Redshirts, though.

“Man, I owe you a blowjob,” Duvall said.“What?” Dahl said.“What?” Hester said.“Sorry,” Duvall said. “In ground forces, when someone does you a favor you tell them you owe them a sex act. If it’s a little thing, it’s a handjob. Medium, blowjob. Big favor, you owe them a fuck. Force of habit. It’s just an expression.”“Got it,” Dahl said.“No actual blowjob forthcoming,” Duvall said. “To be clear”“It’s the thought that counts,” Dahl said, and turned to Hester. “What about you? You want to owe me a blowjob, too?”“I’m thinking about it ,” Hester said.
You can tell from that gritty, realistic dialogue that McRapey has spent a lot of time with manly, military men, doing manly, military things. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that McRapey has written that I find funnier than this absolute jewel of pure, unadulterated fiction.[Vox] really has a thing for me, which is straight-up pure envy, as far as I can tell.
My dear, very dear, Mr. Scalzi, while there are certainly authors whose literary accomplishments and talents I envy, from Umberto Eco and Hermann Hesse to Tanith Lee and Edgar Allen Poe, I can assure you, with 100 percent honesty, that you are not, and have never been, among them.

It is 100% certain that Scalzi has never spent so much as a picosecond with manly, millitary men, doing manly, millitary things.

After reading the above excerpt, I also seriously doubt that he has spent so much as a picosecond on having actual sex with an actual woman. How his wife's daughter was conceived is one of life's great mysteries, but one thing is for sure: Scalzi was not part of the process.

"My dear, very dear, Mr. Scalzi, while there are certainly authors whose literary accomplishments and talents I envy, from Umberto Eco and Hermann Hesse to Tanith Lee and Edgar Allen Poe, I can assure you, with 100 percent honesty, that you are not, and have never been, among them."

The art and/or science of writing (in general, but especially fiction) has always perplexed me, and I am continually in awe of people that can do it well. Not because it is particularly rare, but I;m just not sure I understand it. I don't know the first thing about the mechanics of what makes good for writing, but I am damn near 100% certain I could write something better than that mess.

Is it me, or are most professional writers today terrible?I mean this in any medium; Be it books, comics, movies, television, and so on.Terrible plotting, zero world-building, cringy dialogue and characters who don't act in any logical, reliable or even human manner all around.

OT - 2-16-17 was "Day without illegal invaders" day. We were supposed to be taught a lesson in how important they are, but zero fucks were given. We need a generation without illegal invaders to really judge their importance in my opinion.

Who is this aimed at? I can't think of a single woman who would read this passage and not think, "Ewww." Scalzi writes like a girl and writes as if he has a female audience, but has he ever read porn aimed at women? A lot of it features stronk female protagonists, sure, but they'll have some feminine traits, and they'll usually melt in the presence of a cocksure hunk. They don't talk like locker room longshoremen or treat their male underlings like a meat market. Unless they're in stories written by low-T manlets that are aimed at other low-T manlets who like to imagine that if they just give women enough power, said women will finally throw off the shackles of the Patriarchy and begin fucking random strangers in the street.

Gammas like Scalzi really believe that the only thing keeping women from raining poon down on low-SMV men like themselves, are the sexual constraints of a backward, sexist society. Little does Scalzi know that it was those very same constraints that once drove reasonably attractive women into the monogamous arms of beta pudlings (in exchange for security, resources, and a level of respect in society.) Now, thanks to the Matriarchy, the best a man like Scalzi can hope for is a sniff of the armpit hair of the feminists whose meeting he's jotting down the minutes for.

Can I get a Hugo nomination for my bokey book pleez? I wouldn't ask but one of my nonfake amazon revewiers put the idea into mine and everybody's head!

"Even being familiar with all of the personalities and events satirized, this story contains a host of references that blew right past me. Like all the best parodies, the jokes fly fast and furious, and even if only half of them land, you're still left with enough laughs to make the experience worthwhile. . . .

"This book . . . is utter vapid, contains numerous overt references to deviant sexual practices, and generally falls so far short of greatness that it barely even lands on pretentious. As such, it should be considered a clear contender for the 2017 Hugo Award Shortlist."

Or anyway feel free to read John Scalzi Unfinished Asimov Project on your kindle (free if you have the amazon kindle unlimitedness subscription thingie) and leave a scalzifying or scathing reviews as you fancy! omg I may treat myself to a jar of nescafe house blend DECAF to go wiff my regular WHY NOT BOTH Im a published author now I can afford to two tew!! lozlz

Nate wrote:I don't doubt that CH will one day be able to purchase Tor Books. I do doubt that it will be worth buying when that day comes.John C. Wright's back catalog, Jack Vance, A. E. van Vogt, Gene Wolfe, maybe some of the older works of other good authors. The rest has negative value.

Scalzi is a bit of a plodder, but a readable plodder. There are a lot worse writers around, and the "McRapey" bullshit is just someone (I don;t know who started it) trying to make something real that never was.

True that. if you want hard SF steeped in staples of nerd culture, you cannot do much better than his nowadays. he's the top of his field, warts and all.The way in which he is treated around here was funny for a while, but it is sad and silly now.

He was always a flawed writer, but eminently readable one nonetheless. I will certainly be reading this book, but this constant barrage of "McRapey" is making me question if I will do the same for books published by your company.

Wroko and M. Jeffery: "Scalzi's work may be shit, but at least it's high quality shit. A little crusty around the edges, with just a hint of nutty flavor. "

If Scalzi's work is the best that Nerd Culture can do these days, then President Trump needs to sign an Executive Order creating a federal agency staffed with bullies who specialize in locker-stuffing. Clearly, the bullies of the recent past just haven't been pulling their weight. I know the bullies of MY youth would never have allowed a blousey frump like Scalzi free reign to write his pussyworshipping cringefests

So, Do these people shill for Scalzi for free (what a sad existence theirs must be) or did TOR put part of their advertising budget towards message board shilling?

Love the McRapey taunt. It illustrates perfectly that the left will purposely take things out of context when it suits them but are perfectly capable of understanding context when the tactic is used against their own. They even offer the same dialectic arguments cucks have been trying to use to defend themselves for years.

Actually, I think this novel is a gritty, realistic depiction of interstellar rape culture. When we first meet Scalzi's favorite character, she's raping her subordinate. Literally the first thing we learn about Kiva is that she abuses her authority to prey on her attractive subordinates.

"People [sexually assault their subordinates, who are incapable of freely giving affirmative consent because the superior/inferior dynamic is a priori coercive], and he was unannounced. If this was what he walked into, it was his fault, not hers. The assistant purser seemed a little concerned, but Kiva applied a little pressure to make it clear [she would ignore the fact that he was withdrawing his consent to sex and that the rape] were to continue."

"Trust me, so is this(important)" while having coitus uninterruptus while you ought to be doing your damn job. Those are not the words of a successful captain having sex with someone. Those are the words of a perverse creature sobbing into a handkerchief while it makes sweet love to its index finger and thumb.

Meh. I could point out silly, out of context passages from your own novels. Scalzi is alright at what he does, and I am of that old fashioned sort that wont let artist's attitude an public escapades affect their enjoyment of his art.

Mark Jeffery wrote:Scalzi is a bit of a plodder, but a readable plodder. There are a lot worse writers around, and the "McRapey" bullshit is just someone (I don;t know who started it) trying to make something real that never was.

FFS, this novels opens with a goddamn Scooby Doo reference, and the cringiest, most overused one at that.You can't get any worse than that. "And Scalzi could have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling readers without serious brain damage!"

Yes exactly. His characters are inverted parodies of human sexuality. In this case, his female protagonist is acting like a psychotic version of a male, and the male characters are acting like extremely broken females.

"In my opinion a very large portion of what is now being offered to the public as serious contemporary-scene fiction is stuff that should not be printed but told only privately - on a psychiatrist's couch." - Robert Heinlein

Vox, I love your takedowns of Scalzi. I wish you wrote more of them, usually I find them very funny. As I've remarked earlier in these pages, I'm an ex Scalzi reader, like many, I liked OMW, but nothing else from him, then via Scalzi, I found Vox Popoli, and then Castalia House, JCW, and the originals like Heinlein, Herbert, etc.

But....

This your post is also tedious. I cannot enjoy reading it. Not even this Scalzi takedown you're performing.... expertly, as usual, but unenjoyanle.

It's almost as if.... The tediousness of the underlying Fallen* Excerpt oozes out and lays itself over the rest of the post like lead.

(* or wait, was it Collapsing? oh well, I could care less, I'm soo bored!)

What's your point? Chicken nuggets outsell fillet mignon too and your average 8 year old would say they taste better at that. Let me rephrase it in terms even a troll can comprehend: Mass market popularity usually has no correlation with quality.

Nathan wrote:"In my opinion a very large portion of what is now being offered to the public as serious contemporary-scene fiction is stuff that should not be printed but told only privately - on a psychiatrist's couch." - Robert Heinlein

Considering that Heinlein's fiction was filled with his questionable fetishes and issues, that comes off as some heavy duty projection.

He was always a flawed writer, but eminently readable one nonetheless. I will certainly be reading this book, but this constant barrage of "McRapey" is making me question if I will do the same for books published by your company.

I'm sure Mike really would have been a loyal purchaser of Castalia House works if Vox wasn't so mean.

Steve wrote:I, for one, am intrigued by the intricacies of the interstellar fruit trade, and would like to know more.I know, right?

This probably only applies to me, but between the title and the theme, I've got a lot of Fad Gadget songs running through my head right now. "Coitus Interruptus" and "Collapsing New People" specifically. That might improve the writing to play that in the background, maybe.

Oh come on, Scalzi is a dick, albeit a small one. The point here is the great unconvergence with real sci-fi forking off from SyFy. Mocking these female rape fantasies and stories about maintaining the Emperox' menstrual flow is a contrast and compare. I can't wait for the chapter with sadistic fat lesbian Harpoonen.

That excerpt was awful. It's a good thing this guy already has an audience to buy his books. A friend loaned me Redshirts a couple years ago. It was amusing at least, but will never go down as a great book.

You can say much with few words, or nothing with many words, or sound retarded using large words, or use small words to share profound ideas.

I recall a passage from QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills: "It struck him that somewhere in the sector there was probably an artist or two who had made a fortune by judiciously applying excess gravitation to various creatures."

In fewer than 30 words, a rich image is created. I involuntarily paused here, imagining such a thing.

When Heinlein described Manny's night of love with the aged Matriarch of his clan's line marriage, there was no graphic depiction yet you knew what was happening, what all the characters felt, what they meant to each, why they did it, what was offered as part of their mutual binds and affection. It only took a few paragraphs.

Scalzis work reads like middle school journaling. Everything explained in painful detail, for the author doesn't trust in his reader's intelligence or emotional continence to pick up on subtlety. No. Far better to hammer the point home, bluntly, obviously, and repeatedly.

"Considering that Heinlein's fiction was filled with his questionable fetishes and issues, that comes off as some heavy duty projection."

Despite Heinlein's turn into Ringo country, it isn't projection. This quote followed a Kornbluth lecture which could essentially be summed up as "I see genital, sex, and boob symbolism everywhere and if I don't, it's not serious literature."

Stephen Ward wrote:3 guesses for how she "convinces" the customs agent. First 2 don't count.

She seduces him of course but doesn't sleep with him. You see, strong woman never sleep with men who want to sleep with them. They only sleep with men who do not wish to sleep with them. That explains why no women sleep with Scalzi.

Lets reverse the sexes in this sentence and lets see how McRapey this really is.

Make it the son of the ship's owner fucking the brains out the assistant purser that he had been pursuing for six weeks. How does that scan?

(1.) Rich kid wants to bang poor kid (if she is an assistant pursuer she is both poor and a kid maybe as young as fifteen depending on country of origin).

(2.) "been after for six weeks" If you haven't bagged a someone after three days of sexual pursuit they are either completely uninterested or holding out for a ring. Love is not an issue here this is clearly all about sex and six weeks aboard a ship is now seriously into stalker territory.

Bribes have clearly failed and the rich kid is now obviously using threats to this junior crew members career. The poor kid has given up in despair. The rich kid can ruin her and she knows it. Better to just get it over with and hope that a really bad performance in bed will put him off.

She might risk getting slapped around when she asks, "is it in yet?" But it's totally worth it for the look on that rich bastard's face.

Space is dangerous she thinks to herself afterwards. If he wants more after this I'll offer to meet him in one of the airlocks.

(3) I'm already coming up with a better story than Scalzi did without even trying.

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced. “You’re needed,” he said.

Somethings are not meant for human consumption by any means. After reading his tawdry tale, I feel compelled to pour bleach in my eyes and become a Benedictine monk. I have read better from FREE erotic novels on Amazon Kindle (and that writing is atrocious).

Now I am just blind (from the bleach) and having to learn how to use a braille keyboard.

"And even that was a crap way of describing it, because human languages are crap at describing things more complex than assembling a tree house"

If he truly believe this is small wonder that his work turns out so bad.

He's such a low-energy, beta writer. It's all passive. Even the lady doing the f-ing is going with the flow. There's no darkness/lightness to it - it's just...there.

My take is he's one of those flaccid writers who likes stories where nothing happens, but doesn't understand the "why" of nothing happening. He just chalks it up to "limitation." He tries to mix genres and doesn't know what those genres are or why they do what they do.

I reiterate my above point - I've read many an "amateur writer" who understand writing better than this guy. Scalzi should have stuck to poetry and pretending to be a French feminist stereotype.

Silly But True wrote:There seems to be a lot of repetition of words and conceits through Scalzi's text.

How many times is he going to use the "I'm thinking" bit in works?

He should do a novel on psionics/mentats so the who book can be that joke.

I can write a Scalzi story better than he can, with my own twist. Here it is:

A human brain sits in a jar of fluid, inundated in a saline solution that nourishes and hydrates the nerve center. Tubes emanate from the jar so that the neuronic waves can transmit its thoughts to communicate with the world.

That was the most magnificent prose I have ever read. A true inspiration. When I create my own terminator fan fuction, I shall strive to emulate John Scalzi's tough military dialogue. Of course when I include my sexy shower scene like in that amazing black comedy, "Starship Troopers", I will be sure to mix the dicscussion of what true citizenship means while my characters are going at it in a co-ed shower.

He is so clever and witty and most of all REAL! Its like he knows how real people talk and act. I do have one concern though. I don't see enough of a message in those sample chapters. I'm not sure if I will know how to creat a work that shows real progress and social change in my terminator fan fucktions.

That first sentence is so awkward I had to back up and run at it three times before I'd made sense of it.

As for the rest, I could swear I've read a scene just like that, but I can't place it. Might have been in the GammaLAW series, but it could have been plenty of others. Could he possibly think that kind of thing is edgy, and not like an excerpt of the 1970s?

I remember seeing part of a movie, cannot remember the name of it, set in the 70s. But actually made in the 90s or later. I think one of the plots involved a young woman who was the daughter of a senator.

The part I saw was at a huge party and lots of drugs were being consumed, one woman was dancing with her top off, a couple was having sex in a pool while another guy was trying to do laps, and some 20 something woman was trying to pick up some 16 year old kid. So, yeah, Scalzi isn't exactly edgy.

I remember seeing part of a movie, cannot remember the name of it, set in the 70s. But actually made in the 90s or later. I think one of the plots involved a young woman who was the daughter of a senator.

The part I saw was at a huge party and lots of drugs were being consumed, one woman was dancing with her top off, a couple was having sex in a pool while another guy was trying to do laps, and some 20 something woman was trying to pick up some 16 year old kid. So, yeah, Scalzi isn't exactly edgy.

Simpsons did it!

Quite honestly, I wouldn't have put those sample chapters out there. Perhaps that sort of style is what Scalizi's fans really want, but it sure isn't what I want.

Hauen Holzwanderer wrote:What's your point? Chicken nuggets outsell fillet mignon too and your average 8 year old would say they taste better at that. Let me rephrase it in terms even a troll can comprehend: Mass market popularity usually has no correlation with quality.If Tor Books thought this would be popular on the mass market, they wouldn't have had to pre-order a spot on the Carlos Slim fake-news blog's bestseller list for it.

Do you all know what I thank? I do believe that Mistah Scalzi has nevah gotten all that much seyax in his lahf. What seyax he has got has been due to the kahndness of straynguhz, do you know what ah mean? Sho' you do.

Ah do declare, the boys down on Bourbon Street who hustle change from tourists? They get moah seyax than little Johnnie evah did. But they do hayev the good mannahs not to wraht about it.

That li'l ol' book company, Toah? They could replace li'l Johnie with half a dozen fanfic churners off of th' Internayet and save a lot of money. Then they wouldn't have to rely on the kahndness of straynjuz.

I know what it's lahk to rely on the kahndness of straynjuz, it's not always as good as you expeyact.

@ lubertdas, perhaps he will have an unfortunate bench pressing accident while trying to get chummy with his wife's daughter (after reading this drivel, we can no longer be sure he is the girl's father).

Here, things differ. It is not as on Earth. Approach the tree naked, carrying no ax, no saw. Explain in a clear voice your sorrow, but do not use words. Sing. Our trees know music as our universal language. Perhaps there is much which cannot be expressed in such a language, but these things, the important things, can.

Once the tree understands who you have lost, it will move. Roots will reach down to find your wife's body, no matter how deeply buried. The fruit of life will bloom, for we have no winter here. Once she is drawn to the surface, squeeze the juice into her mouth. One drop is enough. Two will make her a poet, and three, a prophet. The branches will weave themselves into a bower in the crown of the tree. There you may dwell in peaceful happiness for all days.I forgot to mention. To prepare the tree, hang a god from its branches, and let his blood go into the roots, the fruit, and all around, so that the power of infinite love...What do you mean you already had a tree like this on Earth? Why did you come here? The house you will build in that tree is a mansion indeed, if your god is the carpenter's son as you say.So you will see her again. You believed in stories of my strange garden enough to brave the journey here. Why not believe Him?

Notice that The Chinless Wonder is very careful to NOT indicate the sex of the captain's subordinate "conquest" (read rape victim). I suppose in Scalzi's PC addled mind this is considered somehow egalitarian though all it does is further "unperson" this character making him/her even more just a slab of meat for Kiva's emotionless rutting.

Of course this sort of abusive sexual dominance by a female is considered by arrested development manboobs to be "empowering."

From the article comment:"...there's an entire chapter where strategy or politics is discussed by some lady who has been walked in on while fucking Wesley Crusher, and she just keeps going at it while continuing the conversation."

Oh so manboobs has watched "The Red Violin" - well done.

The ironic thing about it is that end of the book gives away that the Flow or whatever it is called has been based on some convoluted lie the entire time.

Yeah Timothy Zahn called and he wants his ending to "Conqueror's Pride" back. What, you're saying the Cersei weapon was never real in the first place? Oh-no's humanity is doomed! (No disrespect to Zahn it was a great book and a great twist at the end - the first time). Seriously what are the legal thresholds to establish plagiarism?

Is it terrible that I can imagine Bujold writing a version of this scene and making it work? The dynamics would absolutely be different (ie the guild member she can't fire would be the one saying "Tough times - I don't care who or what you're doing. You can listen to this.")

Brian Niemeier wrote:When Castalia House overtakes Tor Books, perhaps even before Tor is sold or shuttered, Scalzi will seek publication with CH.

His failed shot at Hollywood means he's stuck--from his point of view--writing books for life, and his status obsession will compel him to write for the biggest house on the block.

@17 Brian, sadly I doubt this will happen. A true Gamma male will try and make excuses for why he doesn't need a publisher. I will bet he'll try and go indie (and fail miserably) or he will find a micro-publisher and pretend that this is a triumphant victory!

I can hear the excuses now: "I used to need major publishers, but now the truth is, major publishers today are horrible, right-wing hate shops. Now, that I have a micro-pub I am writing better fiction. Americans are just too dumb to realize how incredible my work is. I am really, really talented. But the dudebros don't see it."

Scalzi will always be a secret king (no relation to your Soul Cycle!) in his own mind.

But getting back to Vox: The really sad part about all this, is that many, many people actually find this "ironic" humor funny. The sad reality is that Speculative Fiction has become a meeting place for broken souls. (Google about why pedophiles love Star Trek.) Most of the mentally ill folk are attracted to the "escape" our fiction provides.

It's tragic. I went to meetup group recently where the folks assembled were deeply pathetic. (I left when they spent half the meeting attacking Trump and gun owners. One of the old men in the group wrote a horror story where the main character passes by Trump tower. I wish I were making that up.)

If you really want to see Scalzi in his..."best" (I cringe using that word) read his horrible attempt at humor called "The Android's Dream." His main joke is that sheep fart. A lot.

I liked Scalzi's first two books much to Vox's one-time amusement somewhere on this blog. The shortcomings I saw as those of a beginner author. As others have said, though, the good bits were not original and the original bits were not good.

Mark Jeffery wrote:Scalzi is a bit of a plodder, but a readable plodder. There are a lot worse writers around,And there are plenty of better ones.

Consider this Chapter One opening:For the week leading up to his death, Cardenia Wu-Patrick stayed mostly at the bedside of her father, Batrin, who, when he was informed that his condition had reached the limits of medical competence and that palliative care was all that was left to him, decided to die at home, in his favorite bed. Cardenia, who had been aware for some time that the end was close, had cleared her schedule until further notice and had a comfortable chair installed near her father’s bed.

How about:The first chance Cardenia got to know her father was as he lay dying. Fortunately it wouldn't be the last.

More punch, more impact, far less bureaucratic and dull ("cleared her schedule???") and it hints at one of the very few SF elements of the story right upfront: the memory room.

I'm not claiming my rewrite is very good, but it is certainly better and took all of ten seconds.

My work is that of a plodder. Scalzi's is simply verbiage.

and the "McRapey" bullshit is just someone (I don;t know who started it) trying to make something real that never was.That's easy. John Scalzi started it. Here's roughly how (quotes are paraphrases):

@MisesMat, some of the cutesy teenage spec-fic, fan-fic, and ship-fic are rather enjoyable and readable. They get moody, as teens are wont, but I consider the source, and like the brief interludes they provide.

This Scalzi piece, it doesn't even approach the level of nascent fiction author that some of the Disney ship-fic I read.

Older fans who write spec &c. can be scary. They're usually damaged in some way, and the fic is their means of controlling circumstances. It's not self contained though, as the spec world becomes a reality of sorts, which they try to manifest in the real world. Pedophilia as normal, transgender as truth, gay marriage as law...

RE: Scalzi's FlowWTF is it with degenerate leftists to be so fixated on a woman's period? Grant Morrison did the same thing in DC comics' multiverse filling the space between alternate Earths with - get this: ultramenstruum or "the Bleed."

He literally took a pointless marketing ploy "red sky tie-ins" - of the original DC Comics' infinitely more famous Crisis on Infinite Earths, and made the DC multiverse have a woman's menstrual cycle which facilitates multiversal travel.

The saddest part of this excerpt is that it's the excerpt in the first place. They were proud of this, as the best they could find for people to read without spoiling the story. It's what they want people to read for free before actually buying the book. The rest of it must be truly wretched if that's the case. The mind boggles trying to imagine it.

I will certainly be reading this book, but this constant barrage of "McRapey" is making me question if I will do the same for books published by your company.

If you genuinely believe John Scalzi's books are good, then you're not tall enough for the Castalia House ride. We don't recommend our books for kindergarteners or people who don't speak English either.

When I first read the "Chapter Two" excerpt above, I thought for sure that Vox had gone over the top parodying Scalzi. It's so bad, it makes the "blowjob" passage from RED SHIRTS seem like Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains."

Filth! Scalzi writes dirty, decrepit prose. Filth! That is the word that came to mind as I tried to read the excerpt. I wonder what else he can write in the future? His books have lost any sensibilities. Flith! Not science fiction I know and loved.Filth!

That excerpt was awful. It's a good thing this guy already has an audience to buy his books. A friend loaned me Redshirts a couple years ago. It was amusing at least, but will never go down as a great book.

There was more story, character, emotion, complexity, history, imagination, life, love, beauty in JCW's throwaway "instructions to build a treehouse" than in Scalzi's entire oeuvre.

So the bad guy is the Emperox? Really?

That wouldn't be a contraction of Emperor Vox, now would it? Is that subconscious or did he actually think about it? "Hail Emperor Vox, we who are about to ignore our duty to plow subordinates salute you!!!"

I doubt it has anything to do with Vox. But its just lazy writing. I can see his thought process now: "Well I want it to be an 'emperor,' but I need to spruce up the word and make it unique and different...make it my own! I know..I'll change the last letter to an X like they did in Latin to make things female!" ta-da...a new scalzified word. Even Frank Herbert didn't make up a new word, he just found a less-widely known one from the Persians.

(Of course that was never done in Latin, although middle-english would add the suffix -trix to feminize certain masculine Latin nouns...executrix, dominatrix, etc.)

Its just so much cringe...the thought of him sitting there--thinking how clever he imagines himself to be-- makes me want to punch my own face to drown out the pain.

OGRE wrote:Its just so much cringe...the thought of him sitting there--thinking how clever he imagines himself to be-- makes me want to punch my own face to drown out the pain.That's not whose face needs punching.

The whole thing reeks of exhaustion, lethargy and desperation - and this, remember, is the rewrite! I may try to catch him on his upcoming book tour, would love to hear him read the beginning of Chapter Two to a mixed audience.

Real combat arms (19D) story involving sex/sexual innuendo. As told in 2009 by a former Ssg in combat arms in answer to the question "What is a cavtroop LIKE?" from an Intel weenie. Witnessed and corroborated by me, a former Sgt and 19D.

"Our Platoon sergeant had a huge field bag he would take out to each field problem. He kept all of his personal gear in it and after each return from a training OP, he would run over to his house on post, drop it off at home, then scurry back to the troop HQ to supervise the recovery.One day, a trooper witnessed this due to the PSG giving him a ride. He noted that the PSGs wife would grab the bag and take it inside and begin cleaning the nasty uniforms etc. And the PSG never bothered to look inside once he finished packing it in the field.Once the pvt returned and related this to the platoon, planning began immediately.On the next field problem several items were inserted into the PSGs field bag after he sealed it, but before it made it back to his wife...A love letter to him from an imaginary GF, written by the GF of one of the NCOS in 'girl handwriting'Donated panties (used)Used condom (contents also 'donated'Plausible nudie pics (this was in the early 2000s)

Needless to say, the next day after recovery, the PSG comes fuming into the troop area, BURIES a tomahawk in the bulletin board and screams for third platoon to get the FUCK outside onto the parade ground. He proceeded to smoke the dogshit out of them all for several hours while demanding that someone own up to it...No one broke ranks. They all took their smoking together and sucked it up.

Pause.

Intel weenie "that's it? Wtf was the point of all that?"

Cavsarge: the point is, a few weeks later after the next field problem as the PSG went to the parking lot to go home, several troops shadowed him, he lifted his bag up into the tail gate of his truck, then paused, looked around, unzipped it, and began tossing the contents... only THEN was the joke complete...

Here, things differ. It is not as on Earth. Approach the tree naked, carrying no ax, no saw. Explain in a clear voice your sorrow, but do not use words. Sing. Our trees know music as our universal language. Perhaps there is much which cannot be expressed in such a language, but these things, the important things, can.

Once the tree understands who you have lost, it will move. Roots will reach down to find your wife's body, no matter how deeply buried. The fruit of life will bloom, for we have no winter here. Once she is drawn to the surface, squeeze the juice into her mouth. One drop is enough. Two will make her a poet, and three, a prophet.

The branches will weave themselves into a bower in the crown of the tree. There you may dwell in peaceful happiness for all days.

I forgot to mention. To prepare the tree, hang a god from its branches, and let his blood go into the roots, the fruit, and all around, so that the power of infinite love...

What do you mean you already had a tree like this on Earth? Why did you come here? The house you will build in that tree is a mansion indeed, if your god is the carpenter's son as you say.

So you will see her again. You believed in stories of my strange garden enough to brave the journey here. Why not believe Him?

Cavsarge: the point is, a few weeks later after the next field problem as the PSG went to the parking lot to go home, several troops shadowed him, he lifted his bag up into the tail gate of his truck, then paused, looked around, unzipped it, and began tossing the contents... only THEN was the joke complete...

The point was, the difference between cavtroopers was that they were willing to get punished as a team simply to play a practical joke on their PSG who, has the power of life and death over you. Of you can permanently alter his behavior that's like finding kryptonite.In an Intel platoon no one would ever consider a joke like that, and no one would ever smoke an entire platoon like that, it is more than your career is worth.

As a SSG, I smoked a whole platoon in the MI world and nearly got non judicial punishment for it. (one of the females complained that the phrase " your own personal buttfucking" was used during the punishment by another NCO. The offense was failure to follow orders from a superior NCO despite more than one warning, potentially exposing the company to failing an inspection by the BN sergeant major.

...so they're delivering a boatload of[perishable agricultural goods] presumably for a voyage of several weeks, and they didn't have it pre-cleared with customs and have an importer lined up to hand the stuff off to?